Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Huck Finn and the intelligence of minors

When my daughter was 14 years old, she wrote a paper for school about an old controversy: complaints about the novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." It was so good, I persuaded her to submit it to the Colorado Libraries magazine -- and they accepted it. It came out in Fall, 2002, v28 no3.

Huck Finn is in the news again, most recently in Accomac VA, where, along with To Kill a Mockingbird, a parent is seeking to have the books entirely removed from a school. The incident reminded me of my daughter's essay - and I reprint it below because I think she nailed the issues. Maddy's essay, to me, is proof that of course minors should be allowed to read anything they can understand - and they understand plenty. They are certainly up to the challenge of reading American classics.

=================

River Banks

by Madeleine LaRue

If you squint your eyes,
and look real close, you might see that shape out there on the river. See it?
It's just on the horizon, and from here it looks like it don't have a care in
the world. Just a-driftin' down the river, real quiet and peaceful-like, and now,
as it's gettin' closer, you can tell it's a raft, and you can see two blurry figures.
One is a young boy, and he don't think much of sivilization. No sir, he's happy
on the river with his best friend, a runaway slave. But he don't look like a
slave, you say. He's happy; they's both happy, and they's both free. And what
better place to be free than on the river? But, wait... who's that there on the
banks? Yeah, they's the ones. They's shoutin' at the boy, callin' him a racist;
and at his friend, callin' him submissive; and callin' them both a bad example.
And do you hear that snort of laughter? Well, sir, that's a Mister Mark Twain,
and like the boy on the raft, he ain't one to care what other people think
abouthim.

The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (whose title character is, of course, our hero on the raft, and which was
written by our friend Mr. Mark Twain) was published in 1885 and instantly
became a controversy. Most of the modern complaints (at least the ones you hear
about) are of racism. Huck, Jim, Twain, and darn near everyone else in the book
has been accused of being a racist at one point or another.

But before the racism
dilemma, there were other obstacles. On March 5th, 1885, when Huck was still fresh
off the presses, the Concord Public Library Committee decided "to exclude
Mark Twain's latest book from the library. One member of the committee says
that, while he does not wish to call it immoral, he thinks it contains but
little humor, and that of a very coarse type. He regards it as the veriest
trash. The librarian and the other members of this committee entertain similar
views, characterizing it as rough, coarse and inelegant."

No mention of racism was
made at all. In fact, for quite some time, the major objections to Huck were
his "immorality" and his grammar. The book, the CPL Committee said,
was "more suited to the slums than to intelligent respectable
people."

So what did he mean?
That question can be answered a few ways. First, it was simply the way people
talked in the nineteenth century. Twain's novels, like any other writer's,
reflected the speech of his time. In Nat Hentoff's essay "Huck Finn Better
Get Out of Town by Sundown," he quotes a schoolman who remained unnamed:
"Good Lord, Twain spends three quarters of his book trying to make clear
what a damnable word 'nigger' is, because it shows the whites who used it
didn't see, didn't begin to understand the people they were talking
about."

The people, or more
specifically, one person, they were dealing with (to paraphrase Russell Baker)
was the only gentlemen in the river of society's worst. The people Huck and Jim
encounter on the raft are dishonorable, crude, arrogant, and ignorant...
and hold the one kind soul-"Nigger Jim"-"beneath contempt" and
in scorn.

While the king and duke
rob, and the Grangerfords dispute, and Pap abuses, Jim cares for Huck, guards him
all night, calls him honey, loves him as no one else would.

Jim is clearly the most
honorable and most admirable character in the novel. He shows humanity where
others show brutality, delivers kindness though he receives cruelty. And
through all his suffering, he gently guides Huck to all his crucial decisions.
When Huck realizes the nastiness of his trick on Jim on Jackson's Island, it's because
Jim tells him so-"Dat truck is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts
dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed." And Huck is ashamed,
so ashamed he apologizes to a slave-something otherwise unheard of. Jim
forgives him.

And Huck's ultimate
decision-to tear up his note to Miss Watson and declare "All right, then,
I'll go to hell!"-is because of Jim's love. His epiphany is the realization
that Jim's friendship is more important than society's ideals.

At least, that's how I
see it. But black administrator John Wallace (who has been trying to get rid of
Huck Finn in his school district) said, "You want to know why it's so
important to get rid of this book? We are always lamenting that black students
don't learn or progress as well as whites. Well, if you give them this crap
about themselves, how are they going to feel good about themselves?" He
also recalls studying Huck Finn when he was in school, and flinching every time
the word "nigger" was mentioned.

The simple fact that
"nigger" appears in the novel at all is often the only complaint. There
have been cases when a new version of Huck was requested, nigger being replaced
with "black" or "slave." Michelle Malkin offers the best
answer to this request: "Whitewashing the word 'nigger' out of the book's
dialogue would have played into the hands of those who prefer to sanitize history
than [to] confront it."

Isn't it better to learn
from history than to ignore it? Or will whitewashing it, like Tom Sawyer and
his fence, make all the problems go away? Out of sight, out of mind.

Or not. For even as
educators and parents demand the removal of the word "nigger" from
Huckleberry Finn, the students (who, since they're the ones who will be reading
the book, should have a say in the whole matter) have proven they're not as
thick as some people think. "Do you think we're so dumb that we don't know
the difference between a racist book and an anti-racist book?" That quote
came from a Brooklyn eighth-grader interviewed by Nat Hentoff. An African
American eighth-grader.

Obviously, though, many
people feel they shouldn't have to read, hear, or see Huck Finn-or anything
else that offends them.

Do people have a right
not to be offended? Well, according to the Constitution... no. You have the
right of free speech. . . but that means
listening to what everyone else has to say, too, even if you disagree with it.

However, just for the
sake of argument, let's say we do have that right not to hear. On that
principle, since I can't run as fast as other people in my P.E. class, I
shouldn't have to go to P.E. Seeing other people beating me in races offends me
and is damaging to my self-esteem. And I couldn't draw to save my life, so I shouldn't
be subjected to the humiliation of art class. Come to think of it, the
probability of my being offended in school is so high, that I probably
shouldn't go at all. See what kind of world that would be? A boring one, that's
what. "If we try to banish works that some people feel are painful,"
says Jill Janows, "we'll be left with nothing to teach. The question is
how to teach, and how to teach successfully-with respect for all students as
well as for the works being taught."

Nat Hentoff agrees with
her. He feels that, if there are ill feelings to the novel, the teacher's job
is to channel those feelings to the issues Twain himself was against namely, slavery.
J. Whyatt Mondesire makes a valid point when he says, "You're not going to
learn anything by closing your eyes and not reading."

So there they go again,
a boy and a slave, back down the river. It was a different river then, you
know, 'cuz a river, well, it's like history, and history don't always flow the
same way. And it sure don't always flow smooth. Yessir, you got lots of rapids
in that river. But to that boy and that man down there, a few rapids don't matter.
They've been there before.

Popular posts from this blog

Recently, a library patron challenged (urged a reconsideration of the ownership or placement of) a book called "Uncle Bobby's Wedding." Honestly, I hadn't even heard of it until that complaint. But I did read the book, and responded to the patron, who challenged the item through email and requested that I respond online (not via snail-mail) about her concerns.

I suspect the book will get a lot of challenges in 2008-2009. So I offer my response, purging the patron's name, for other librarians.

Uncle Bobby's wedding
June 27, 2008

Dear Ms. Patron:

Thank you for working with my assistant to allow me to fit your concerns about “Uncle Bobby's Wedding,” by Sarah S. Brannen, into our “reconsideration” process. I have been assured that you have received and viewed our relevant policies: the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, the Freedom to View, and our Reconsideration Policy.

Years ago, I came up with this phrase to describe why libraries matter: they are institutions dedicated to the recognition and support of the fundamental dignity of human inquiry.

Curiosity is responsible for all the real gains in the quality of human life. What causes disease, and how can we prevent it? How can we build comprehensive and sustainable systems to deliver clean water and energy, to move goods and services to markets, or to educate the young? Human beings ask questions, and in the fearless pursuit of answers, they can find their way to the things that make human life enduring and worthwhile.

That end - a life in which people are free to explore the universe around them, to stand unafraid, to build rather than blunder and destroy their way through their days, to live with dignity and purpose - requires at least three things.

First, we must have the freedom to express what we know or think we know. This is what we mean by “free speech” -- the right to think, say, and write …

The older I get, the more I think there are basically two kinds of people: builders and destroyers. Between these two, maybe, are those who appreciate things, and those who mostly ignore things. But over the years I've come to group the former with builders, and the latter with destroyers.

"I'm a Leninist," said Steven Bannon in 2013. "Lenin wanted to destroy the state. And that's my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today's establishment."

I wish I could say that I thought this was hyperbole or posturing. I don't. I believe him. For Baby Boomers, destroying institutions is what we do. Is there conflict between personal and institutional values? Well, one of us must change! Guess who?

It doesn't take much work to trace Bannon's predilections at Breitbart, and in his still early days as chief strategist for Trump. And there's Trump himself, in a bizarre bro-mance with Putin.